Monday, February 7, 2011

Lemon Cupcakes

Lemon cup cakes

Lemon cup cakes with icingg

In the making. Add a teaspoon of batter in  a medium sized forms

Here you can see the fluffy batter and two teaspoons, with one I put the batter in, with the other one I scoop the batter from the spoon

Golden top, made with real lemon juice and sugar


These beautiful cup cakes I found in one of the blogs I fallow 'The Sunny Kitchen'.
I had never made cup cakes before, this was my first try and definitely not the last. I fell in love with these miniature cakes. What's not to love, when it comes out so well from the very first time!

You will need:
1 1/4 cup of sifted flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt (I omitted that because I used salted butter)
115 gr. butter, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
2 big eggs
1/2 cup of milk
1 lemon zest
1 lemon juice (use from the same one you grated the zest off)
If you like lemon, like me, you can use two lemon zests in your batter, because you will need another lemon juice for 'icing'.

For the non - non traditional icing
1/2 cup of sugar
1 lemon juice

1. Beat the butter and sugar with the electric mixer, until fluffy, you may need to scrape sides with spatula few times. I mix for about 5 good minutes, just to make sure it is as fluffy as possible.
2. Add eggs, one at the time, continue on beating well, to get lots of fluff.
3. Add lemon zest and one lemon juice. Beat with the mixer some more.
4. Add milk. Surprisingly, it does not cured.
5. Sift flower in a separate medium size bowl, add baking powder.
6. Start adding flour with baking powder to the mix. The batter should be about the thickness of a sour cream.
7. Get the flat baking form, line the cup cake paper forms, start filling them with the batter. Do not fill to the top. You will need to fill about 1/3. I have baked these in mini and medium forms. Either one is fine, mini forms require extra patience, though, that I don't have too much of.
Bake at 350 F for about 15-20 minutes, until golden.
8. For the 'icing', mix lemon juice with sugar. If the sugar doesn't melt and there is not enough liquid, heat it on the stove a bit. I just put on the hole, where the heat comes from the oven. Easy. Doesn't burn, yet melts some sugar. The mixture should have some sugar granules, though. It's a nice surprise, when you bite into a cup cake and find lemony sugar on top, instead of a melted juice, that could make your cup cake too soggy.
9. Once your cupcakes are ready, poke the tops with the fork, just few times, put half a teaspoon of lemon-sugar mix.


If you want to try to top these lovely cup cakes with the more regular icing, here it is. I tried it, it's very good. My son looked at it and didn't even try it. So, that idea is out for me.

Regular lemon icing.
200 gr of butter, room temperature
400 gr of cream cheese (like Philadelphia)
3/4 pounds of sugar powder, otherwise known as confectioners sugar
1 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract
1 lemon juice
You can use these products according to your likes and taste. But the ratio should be similar to this.
Mix well all the ingredients with the electric mixer. I didn't have the special gadget to decorate, so I just used the plastic freezer bag and cut a tiny hole in the corner. Worked like a charm. Sure, it wasn't as pretty as you see in the store or some magazine, but it tastes great. Not too sweet, has a great lemon bite, superb!

No comments: